Canavan nets seventh goal

RINDGE, N.H. (October 2, 2015) – On a cold and wet Friday night at Sodexo Field, both teams struggled to generate offense before a flurry of goals late in the second half. Freshman midfielder Raegan Moulton (Baldwinville, Mass.) procured the eventual game-winner for the Franklin Pierce University field hockey team in the 57th minute, as the Ravens put away Pace with two late goals for a 3-1 win in Northeast-10 Conference play.

With the win, Franklin Pierce improves to 6-4 (2-3 Northeast-10), while Pace falls to 2-7 (0-4 Northeast-10). Friday night marked the first-ever meeting between the two teams, as Pace is in its inaugural field hockey season.

The game featured a strange first 10 minutes, as senior forward Vanessa LeBlanc (Salisbury, Mass.) appeared to put home the game's first goal early on. On a cross from the right side, LeBlanc took two swipes at the ball, banged it to the back of the cage and kicked off the celebration for the Ravens. However, it was ruled she had played the ball with her foot first, which washed out the goal and gave Pace the ball going the other way.

LeBlanc would get a goal which would count just minutes later, in the 10th minute. She wound up with the ball at the top of the circle and elected to uncork a shot from there. The ball found its way through traffic and beat Pace sophomore goalkeeper Lesly Sanchez Alvarez as well, resulting in LeBlanc's third goal of the season.

The LeBlanc goal would be the only scoring in the first half, as Franklin Pierce took a 1-0 lead into the halftime break. The teams combined for only six shot attempts in the first half and would combine for just four more in the second half on a night where weather conditions appeared to suppress offense.

Franklin Pierce doubled the lead to 2-0 in the 57th minute, in the aftermath of a penalty corner. After the initial attempt towards the net, there was a scramble for the loose ball to the left of the goalkeeper. Moulton was the first to get her stick to the ball amid the foot traffic and stuffed it inside the right post for her third goal of the season.

Pace answered less than four minutes later, in the 61st minute, to cut the gap to 2-1. On a penalty corner, freshman midfielder Katrina Mikitish inserted the ball to sophomore forward Margaret Maclean on the left side. Maclean wound and fired from there, while freshman forward Halley Rose was able to redirect the shot en route to earn her third goal of the campaign.

The Ravens reclaimed the two-goal cushion with just 2:13 to play, in the 68th minute, with the game's final score. With Pace pushing more and more players forward as time wound down, in an effort to find the tying goal, Franklin Pierce was able to put together an odd-man rush on a counterattack. The ball came out to junior forward Andrea Fahey (Hudson, Mass.) with a head of steam and room to run down the right-wing side coming out of the defensive end. Sophomore forward Carly Canavan (Kingston, N.Y.) got out on the run with her and sped ahead of the only defender left for the pair to beat.

The defender was left with no choice but to pressure Fahey, who sent a long ball ahead. It appeared the feed would be too long and run out of bounds before Canavan could track it down, but Alvarez elected to come out to play it away to be sure. Unfortunately for her, she could not cleanly kick it away and lost the ball between her pads. Canavan was on top of the play quickly, fished out the ball and put it into the vacated cage for her team-leading seventh goal of the season.

Pace was unable to put any of its three shot attempts on target, which meant Franklin Pierce sophomore goalkeeper Meaghan Williams (Salem, N.H.) did not have to make a save on the way to the win (5-3), while allowing one goal. Alvarez (2-4) finished with just one save on four shots against in the loss for Pace.

The Ravens return to the field on Wednesday, Oct. 7, when they remain home to host Stonehill in a Northeast-10 Conference contest. Game time is set for 4 p.m. at Sodexo Field.

For more information on Franklin Pierce Athletics, please visit the official website of Franklin Pierce Athletics (http://athletics.franklinpierce.edu). Also be sure to follow the Ravens through the Department of Athletics' official Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/FranklinPierceRavens), its YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/franklinpiercesports) and its Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/FPUathletics). Fans wishing to purchase Franklin Pierce field hockey can do so at the Department of Athletics' online store (http://athletics.franklinpierce.edu/store).